1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to power supplies and, more specifically, the present invention relates to power supplies drawing power from a plurality of sources.
2. Background Information
Loads may be required in certain applications to draw power from a plurality of power sources. FIG. 1A is an example of such a present day situation. As shown, a load 101 is operating from redundant power sources including primary power source 103 and secondary power source 105. An example of the situation illustrated in FIG. 1A might be a satellite system operating from redundant power sources including a primary power source and at least one backup power source. If primary power source 103 fails, secondary power source 105 is switched to supply power to load 101. In some situations, multiple secondary power sources 105 may be available for backup.
FIG. 1B is a diagram of another present day situation in which multiple applications may share a device. For example, multiple tenants may share one of a plurality of common apartment building utility devices. As shown in FIG. 1B, applications 159, 161 and 163 share shared device 151. In the example shown in FIG. 1B, power source 153 is associated with application 159, power source 155 is associated with application 161 and power source 157 is associated with application 163. Shared device 151 is powered by a single power source 155. Thus, in this situation, even though applications 159, 161 and 163 all utilize shared device 151, only one power source 155 is needed to supply power to shared device 151. Assuming applications 159, 161 and 163 correspond to different tenants in the apartment building, the tenants corresponding to applications 159 and 163 need to reimburse the tenant that corresponds to application 161 for their respective usage of shared device 151.
A power sharing apparatus and method are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method of sharing power includes switchably coupling and decoupling each of a plurality of power sources to deliver at least a portion of power to a shared power supply. Each of the power sources corresponds to one of a plurality of applications. The method also includes adjusting the portion of power delivered by each one of the power sources to the shared power supply responsive to an amount of usage by the application corresponding to the respective power source. Additional features and benefits of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description, figures and claims set forth below.